In every office, there is one person who doesn’t fuck up. It just doesn’t happen. At Melbourne uni physics, it’s Cilla. At my travel agent it’s John. The office rests upon this person’s steel spine. If you have to deal with anyone else, your chances are mixed. Your chances may be excellant, as at physics, or they may be negligible, like at the travel agent.

So, when you turn up, the infallible person is on the phone and someone untested says “Can I help you”, one may wince as they hand over those documents of vital importance. One gives their instructions. When met by that special glassy look that is reserved for the eyes of taxidermied deer and paper shufflers of the moronic ilk, one grins politely and repeats the instructions. Slowly. “A courier to Toronto and one back. It's very important these don’t get lost in regular mail”.

That’s how I kissed my passport goodbye.

It’s a unique feeling when one realises the fate of the most important document one possesses is out of ones hands. It’s an almost morphean elation that it is in the hands of the gods. However, morphian elation is a false joy, and wears off as soon as one comprehends that the hands that hold your passport are the hands of the Gods of Mediocrity, the hands of taxidermied goat woman and one of the most infamously unreliable consulates known to man.

Maybe it isn’t that catastrophic. Maybe all this negativity comes from the two hours spent staring at that those two lines of mathematics and the unknowable, invisible swarm of logical steps between them. "It is trivial to show that..." Maybe it came from those extra minutes I had to polish this piece in my head while the bus driver didn’t stop, despite the ‘next stop’ light illuminated above his head. Maybe I'm just being a conceited bastard.

Anyways, thankyou to Andrew for the kind words he said in his email to the school_students list. El Presidente is indeed spreading the revolution; I have staged a coup d'etat and organised a trip to a Nigerian restaurant for the local grad student association this weekend. I will just avoid visiting the Bolivian PPSS...

Additional interesting information about Winnipeg and Canada in general: It is possible to walk almost the entire width and length of Down Town Winnipeg in heated 'sky walks' and under almost all of U Manitoba in basement tunnels. Canadians don't use A4 paper. This, I am told, is for Europeans and 'letter' sized paper is the go. Those crazy Canadians, flying in the face of the golden ratio.

It's going well! I start back on the latest possible date that my scholarship offer specified, March 20th. But I'm currently auditing a history subject, 'Total War: Asia and the Pacific 1932-1952.' It's fab! I get to hear great lectures, go to the tutes I feel like going to and don't have to write the essay!